DESCRIPTION OF SPRING.
FROM the moist meadow to the wither'd hill,
Led by the breeze, the vivid verdure runs,
And swells, and deepens, to the cherish'd' eye.
The hawthorn whitens, and the juicy groves
Put forth their buds, unfolding by degrees,
Till the whole leafy forest stands display'd,
In full luxuriance, to the sighing gales;
Where the deer rustle through the twining brake2,
And the birds sing conceal'd. At once array'd
In all the colours of the flushing3 year,
By nature's swift and secret working-hand,
The garden glows, and fills the liberal air
With lavish fragrance; while the promis'd fruit
Lies yet a little embryo+, unperceiv'd,
Within its crimson folds. Now from the town,
Buried in smoke, and sleep, and noisome damps,
Oft let me wander o'er the dewy fields,
Where freshness breathes, and dash the trembling drops
From the bent bush, as through the verdant maze
Of sweet-briar hedges I pursue my walk;
Or taste the smell of dairy; or ascend
Some eminence, Augusta, in thy plains,
And see the country far diffus'd5 around,
One boundless blush, one white-empurpled show'r
Of mingled blossoms, where the raptur'd eye
Hurries from joy to joy; and, hid beneath
The fair profusion, yellow Autumn spies.6
1 Cherished, gratified, relieved.
3 Flushing, luxuriant.
5 Diffused, outspread.
2 Twining brake, tangled copse.
4 Embryo, a germ.
6 The eye spies autumn hid, &c., i. e. the mind's eye.
Should I my steps turn to the rural seat,
Whose lofty elms and venerable oaks
Invite the rook, who, high amid the boughs,
In early spring his airy city builds,
And ceaseless caws amusive'; there well pleas'd
I might the various polity 2 survey
Of the mix'd household kind. The careful hen
Calls all her chirping family around,
Fed and defended by the fearless cock;
Whose breast with ardour flames, as on he walks,
Graceful, and crows defiance. In the pond,
The finely-chequer'd duck before her train
Rows garrulous. The stately sailing swan
Gives out his snowy plumage to the gale;
And, arching proud his neck, with oary feet
Bears forward fierce, and guards his osier isle,
Protective of his young. The turkey nigh,
Loud threat'ning, reddens; while the peacock spreads
His ev'ry colour'd glory to the sun,
And swims in radiant majesty along.
Thus all day long the full-distended clouds Indulge their genial stores, and well-shower'd earth Is deep enrich'd with vegetable life;
Till, in the western sky, the downward sun
Looks out, effulgent, from amid the flush
Of broken clouds, gay shifting to his beam.
The rapid radiance instantaneous strikes
Th' illumin'd mountain; through the forest streams,
Shakes on the floods, and in a yellow mist,
Far smoking o'er th' interminable plain,
In twinkling myriads lights the dewy gems.
Moist, bright, and green, the landscape laughs around.
Full swell the woods: their ev'ry music wakes,
Mix'd in wild concert with the warbling brooks
Increas'd, the distant bleatings of the hills
And hollow lows responsive from the vales,
Whence, blending all, the sweeten'd zephyr springs,
1 Amusive, in a pleasing manner: not a well-chosen word. 2 Polity, mode of government and living.
Meantime, refracted' from yon eastern cloud,
Bestriding earth, the grand ethereal bow
Shoots up immense, and ev'ry hue unfolds,
In fair proportion running from the red,
To where the violet fades into the sky.
Here, awful Newton2, the dissolving clouds
Form, fronting on the sun, thy show'ry prism;
And, to the sage instructed eye, unfold
The various twine of light, by thee disclos'd
From the white mingling maze. Not so the boy:
He wond'ring views the bright enchantment bend,
Delightful, o'er the radiant fields, and runs
To catch the falling glory; but amaz'd
Beholds th' amusive arch before him fly,
Then vanish quite away. Still night succeeds,
A soften'd shade, and saturated earth
Awaits the morning beam, to give to light,
Rais'd through ten thousand diff'rent plastic tubes,
The balmy treasures of the former day.
Welcome, ye shades! Ye bowery thickets, hail!
Ye lofty pines! ye venerable oaks!
Ye ashes wild3, resounding o'er the steep!
Delicious is your shelter to the soul,
As to the hunted hart the sallying+ spring,
Or stream full-flowing, that his swelling sides
Laves, as he floats along the herbag'd brink.
Cool thro' the nerves your pleasing comfort glides ;
The heart beats glad; the fresh-expanded eye
And ear resume their watch; the sinews knit,
And life shoots swift through all the lighten'd limbs.
Around th' adjoining brook, that purls along
The vocal grove, now fretting o'er a rock,
Now scarcely moving through a reedy pool,
Now starting to a sudden stream, and now
Gently diffused into a limpid plain;
A various group the herds and flocks compose;
Rural confusion! On the grassy bank
1 Refracted. The teacher will explain the refraction of light.
2 Newton's work on optics, or the laws of light and vision, is alluded to.
The teacher will not fail to remark the omission of a reference to Genesis, ix. 12.-17.
3 The wild ash grows in rocky heights.
4 Sallying, gushing, bursting forth.
Some ruminating lie! while others stand
Half in the flood, and often bending sip
The circling surface. In the middle droops.
The strong laborious ox, with honest front,
Which incomposed he shakes; and from his sides
The troublous insects lashes with his tail,
Returning still. Amid his subjects safe,
Slumbers the monarch swain1; his careless arm,
Thrown round his head, on downy moss sustain'd:
Here laid his scrip, with wholesome viands fill'd;
There, listening every noise, his watchful dog.
DESCRIPTION OF A WATERFALL.
I stray, regardless whither; till the sound Of a near fall of water every sense
Wakes from the charm of thought: swift shrinking back,
I check my steps, and view the broken scene.
Smooth to the shelving brink a copious flood
Rolls fair and placid; where collected all
In one impetuous torrent, down the steep
It thundering shoots, and shakes the country round.
At first an azure sheet, it rushes broad;
Then whitening by degrees, as prone it falls,
And from the loud-resounding rocks below
Dash'd in a cloud of foam, it sends aloft
A hoary mist, and forms a ceaseless shower.
Nor can the tortur'd wave here find repose:
But, raging still amid the shaggy rocks,
Now flashes o'er the scatter'd fragments, now
Aslant the hollow channel rapid darts;
And falling fast from gradual slope to slope,
With wild infracted course, and lessen'd roar,
It gains a safer bed, and steals, at last,
Along the mazes of the quiet vale.
Lie stretch'd below, interminable meads,
And vast savannas, where the wandering eye,
Unfixt, as in a verdant ocean lost.
Another Flora2; there, of bolder hues,
1 Monarch swain, the shepherd, who, though poor, is lord of the animal creation. (See Genesis, ix. 2, 3.)
2 Flora, vegetable kingdom.
And richer sweets, beyond our garden's pride,
Plays o'er the field, and showers with sudden hand
Exuberant Spring: for oft these valleys shift
Their green embroider'd robe to fiery brown,
And swift to green again, as scorching suns,
Or streaming dews and torrent rains, prevail.
Along these lonely regions, where, retir'd
From little scenes of art, great Nature dwells
In awful solitude, and nought is seen
But the wild herds that own no master's stall,
Prodigious rivers roll their fatt'ning seas:
On whose luxuriant herbage, half conceal'd,
Like a fall'n cedar, far diffus'd his train,
Cas'd in green scales, the crocodile extends.
The flood disparts: behold! in plaited mail,
Behemoth rears his head. Glane'd from his side,
The darted steel in idle shivers flies:
He fearless walks the plain, or seeks the hills;
Where, as he crops his varied fare, the herds,
In widening circle round, forget their food,
And at the harmless stranger wondering gaze.
Peaceful beneath primeval trees, that cast
Their ample shade o'er Niger's yellow stream,
And where the Ganges rolls his sacred wave;
Or mid the central depth of blackening woods,
High rais'd in solemn theatre around,
Leans the huge elephant: wisest of brutes!
O truly wise! with gentle might endow'd:
Though powerful, not destructive! Here he sees
Revolving ages sweep the changeful earth,
And empires rise and fall; regardless he
Of what the never resting race of men
Project: thrice happy could he 'scape their guile,
Who mine, from cruel avarice, his steps;
Or with his towery grandeur swell their state,
And bid him rage amid the mortal fray,
Astonish'd at the madness of mankind.
There, through the prison of unbounded wilds Barr'd by the hand of Nature from escape, Wide roams the Russian exile. Nought around Strikes his sad eye, but deserts lost in snow;
1 The Hippopotamus, or river horse. (See Job, xl. 15—24.)
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